On Taxes and Patriotism
Professor Stephen Walt had an interesting post yesterday over at Foreign Policy pondering the implications of how the debt obligations of the U.S. resulting from the current recession and President Obama’s health care agenda might impact our foreign policy stance. He suggests that perhaps the realities of our debt will necessitate the a reductions in the sacred cow of defense spending :
One of the great triumphs of Reagan-era conservatism was to convince Americans that paying taxes so that the government could spend the money at home was foolish and wrong, but paying taxes so that the government could spend the money defending other people around the world was patriotic. Ever since Reagan, in short, neoconservatives supported paying taxes to promote a U.S.-dominated world order, while denouncing anyone who wanted to spend the money on roads, bridges, schools, parks, and health care for Americans as a “tax and spend liberal.” But if I’m right about the emerging fiscal environment, that situation may be about to change.
I think Walt is correct about this percieved dichotomy, but I think the notion that paying taxes for domestic goods isn’t viewed as patriotic is overplayed. When, for example, Vice President Biden called the rich paying higher taxes ”patriotic” earlier this year, he was castigated in the press. But if you look at the survey data that speaks to the Biden question, it shows two imporant things:
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The vast majority of Americans – 72 percent – “completely agree” that paying one’s “fair share” of taxes is “every American’s civic duty.” Another 22 percent of Americans “mostly agree” with that statement.
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The vast majority of Americans – 74 percent – believe the rich ought to be paying more taxes.
Add to this the fact that Biden was calling for a tax increase that would have left taxes on the highest income Americans still lower than those under Ronald Reagan and Biden’s remark seems fairly unremarkable.
This brings me to my second point, which is that despite the outrage provoked by high-profile politicians calling for higher taxes, I think progressives ought to lay the groundwork for such increases. Indeed, Walt is focused on how the revenue pie might be allocated, but what about increasing the size of the revenue pie? The programs that Obama wants to implement are, in my view, necessary. As such, we ought to be willing to pay for them.
